After I finished scanning all of my old slides and putting the photos into galleries on Web pages, I decided to start scanning some of my old photo albums and documents, and doing the same thing with those. This page is a compilation of the pages that I have done so far. Go to the link below if you want to see photos from the scanned slides.
Go To Page With Links to Photos Scanned From Old SlidesWhen I was about 14 years old, I thought it would be good if a put together a photo album of photos that I would like to take with me. So, with Mom's help I took photos from many of the various albums that she had and put them all in to one.
The album starts with photos of when I was born in the Canal Zone and ends up at about the time we lived in Parklawn, VA. During these years we also lived in Ft. Douglas, Utah, Ft. Hamilton, NY, St. Louis, MO, and Houston, TX. Most importantly are the photos of my parents Cal and Betty. Many include my older brother Roy since we are only 11 months apart.
You will also see my sisters, Gail and Steph and my younger brother Keith. Also included are some of my relatives, especially my grandfather, Ezra and grandmother Bessie. I put in some of the photos from vacations we took in Montana and Minnesota because, even though I was very young, I do remember some things about the trips. The photos of the Indian Guides, Boy Scouts, our Appalachian Trail hike and the airplane I built all have special meaning to me.
I found these photos in an album I had completely forgotten about. They show a little about what it was like being a cadet. The first 20 or so are from swab summer, which is a very tough period when they weed out the guys that don't want to stay. By the end of the summer our class had dropped from 230 to about 180. Four years later we graduated only 113.
Most importantly, these are the years that I met my wife, Ann. I've included a few of her here so that I can stay out of hot water.
Some of the funnier photos show some old demerit slips I had and also The Guide to Cadet "Drags". This was the booklet we gave to our dates. If you read through it you'll see that it is a little behind the times. I was on the tennis team all four years. I lettered three years and was captain of the team my senior year.
When my mother died, she had several old photo albums. Some were falling apart. So, I took them and put the photos into new albums. I separated them into groups such as Mom and Dad, Relatives, Jerry, Roy, etc.
The ones in this group are from the one labeled Jerry. It isn't in chronological order, but covers about the first 35 years of my life.
This album has many good memories - my parents, brothers and sisters, Parklawn, our vacation to Waupaca, Ann with girlfriend Penny, Ezra when he was older, my children, etc.
This group is all about my mother, Betty, and my father, Clarence (Cal). They met, married and lived in the Canal Zone during the period of WWII. My mother was born there and my father was stationed there while in the Army.
After many Army assignments and moves they retired to St. Petersburg, FL in 1966.
My mother died from cancer in 1984 and my father died in 1989. I wish parents could live forever.
My grandfather, Ezra, went to the Canal Zone around 1907 to work on the Panama Canal. My grandmother, Bessie, was the daughter of an engineer that also worked on the canal. They married in 1911, raised 5 children in the Canal Zone (including my mother), and retired in 1947 to Houston, TX.
When I was growing up, my mother's family was a large part of my life.
I am fortunate to have ended up with some of the old photos.
All of the photos in this group are from my mother's teenage/high school years scrapbook. Unfortunately by the time I got it about 40% of the contents had been removed. Fortunately, there is enough to get a good idea of her life during that period.
It's obvious she had a happy, active time during high school - lots of friends, swimming, volleyball, school, the school newspaper, parts in school plays, a busy social life, traveling, etc.
My mother's parents, Ezra and Bessie Haldeman, gave her this scrapbook when she was 13 years old. She did a good job putting important items into it.
All of the photos in this group are from my mother's scrapbook that she kept from 1937 to 1940. She was finishing high school and starting work in the Canal Zone finance office. The photos include lots of friends on outings to the beach, falls, Old Panama, etc. There are also many of her family.
What is most interesting is that this is the period when her boy friend, Roger, went off to college in the states and shortly after he left my mother met my father. And as they say, the rest is history.
This scrapbook is more complete than the previous one and very few items have been removed. Because there are 223 items, I divided it into two separate albums with separate links.
The first 6 photos in this group are some related to Mom that I found in with the others. Number 2 is her brother George. The rest, starting with Dad's high school diploma, are from a folder that had many of his important documents.
They span the period from when he was enlisted in the US Army in the 1930's, through the time when he worked for the Civil Service in the Canal Zone, and then when he was an officer in the US Army.
The last 3 are when he retired in 1966 and received the Legion of Merit award.
This group of photos are of my two sisters Gail and Stephanie.
They span the period from the 1950's to the 1980's. Some are of my sister Gail's two children.
I have a couple more albums to scan and then I'm going to look through some old documents in my genealogy folders.
A good snapshot stops a moment from running away. ~Eudora Welty